thank you for watching. captioned by closed captioning services, inc >> bret: fire in the sky over persian gulf. iran tries to shoot down surveillance aircraft. we learned of it today. when it happened is raising eyebrows. this is "special report." ♪ ♪ >> bret: good evening. i'm bret baier. the cold standoff with iran wageed mostly on an economic battleground. quite a bit warmer tonight. that is because the weapons in the latest incident are real. as with the target. unmanned u.s. predator surveillance graft. the incident was real. though the timing is perhaps, perhaps suspect. one week ago. six days before the u.s. election. national security correspondent jennifer griffin is following this breaking story from the pentagon.

>> reporter: at 4:50 a.m. november 1, days before the u.s. presidential election, two iranian su-25 frog foot fighter jets like these intercepted and fired twice upon an unmanned, unarmed u.s. m-2-1 predator drone over the persian gulf. it's the first time the iranians ever fired on a u.s. drone. the shots missed on both attempted. iran's fighter pilots briefly pursued the drone that landed safely at an undisclosed location. >> incident occurred over international waters. 16 nautical miles off the coastline. aircraft was never in iranian air space. it was always flying in international air space. the internationally recognized territorial limit is 12 nautical miles off the coast. we never entered the 12 nautical mile limit. >> asked whether the incident was an act of war, the pentagon spokesman said he

would not legally label it. adding the state department had protested through the swiss protected powers which represented the u.s. government in tehran since the u.s. embassy takeover in 197ed 9. >> the united states communicated to the iranians we will continue to conduct surveillance lights over international waters, over the arabian gulf. consistent with the long standing practicetant commitmencommitment to the secuf the region. >> in december, classified rq-1-70 u.s. sentinel drone crashed inside iran after losing contact with the handlers monitoring iran nuclear site. iranians recovered it largely intact. the pentagon did not disclose the details of the more recent drone incident citing the "classified" mission. meantime, more rising tension is looming farther east with china as president obama prepared for a second term. a new report suggests china is two years away from deploying nuclear ballistic missiles on the submarines. missiles with a 4600-mile range.

unveiled a second sophisticated stealth fighter jet that industry experts say may have been developed with stolen u.s. technology. chinese j-31 stealth fighter has an air intake and wing dimension that is suspiciously similar to the american s-35 an35.u.s. navy officials confira russian nuclear-powered attack submarine detected 300 miles off the east coast of the united states in late october. russia navy commander announced earlier on june 1, the russian nuclear power subs would return to patrolling the world's oceans as they did in the soviet times. >> bret: jennifer griffin live at the pentagon. thank you. we're learning tonight about the new suspects in september's deadly terror attack on the u.s. mission in libya. incident about to come under scrutiny. herron has the latest. >> reporter: -- catherine

herridge has the latest. >> reporter: the list of suspects extends handful of militants aligned with the group jamal network fox news learned. it takes its name from abu ahmed released from the egyptian jail in arab spring. he has close ties to al-qaeda leader ayman al-zawahiri. >> i think we are going to find out that jamal is much more active internationally across, not just in libya and egypt but elsewhere. network is involved in really exploring terrorism throughout the middle east. >> u.s. officials believe jamal established training camps in libya and in the camps that some of the fighters linked to the attack were trained. >> there are dozens of suspects. this flies in the face of what the administration told us, a mob and video that got out of control. >> with three congressional hearings scheduled next week, this letter from the house foreign affairs committee to secretary clinton underscoring growing complaints from lawmakers that "we are receiving more information from the press than from the administration." >> i just know it's been very difficult to get any information out of them at all. ever since september 11.

>> asked about a specific report that classified cables available for two days this week while most senators are out of town, state department spokeswoman insist they're trying to comply. >> we are working with staff to ensure the appropriate people can get to them on the schedule convenient for them. the issues we are working them through. >> classified documents will now be made available by the state department on friday. special notice on capitol hill. senior staffers and senators on the foreign relations committee will view it in a classified set something they can't take copies with them. >> bret: syria's president says he is not going anywhere. bashar assad is vowing to stay in syria, despite western calls for his departure. in the midst of the syria bloody civil war. correspondent leland vittert has that story from jerusalem. >> incoming missiles and the explosions reverberate around

the capital but the rebels can now fire back at the regime. this uncomfortable amateur video shows rebels firing mortals toward what they claim as assad's palaces. in a rare interview broadcast on russian television assad remained defiant. >> many of president assad's seasonals are dying. rebels assault the government barracks in coordinated attac attacks. the video show the government troops who don't die in the battle are executed either in groups or shot in the street. president assad warned the world against coming after him. >> i think if this happened going -- [ inaudible ] >> tough words come as turkey floated the idea deploying american made patriot

anti-aircraft missiles along the syrian border to create a safe zone of sorts where zillians and rebels would be protected from the syrian air force jets. assad said he doesn't think the west will intervene militarily against him. so far, he is right. protected by china, russia and iran he has been the initial kill his own people at will. going forward, there is every reason to believe death toll now above 35,000 will continue to rise during a bloody winter. bret? >> bret: leland vittert live in the middle east newsroom. thank you. back in this country, the votes have been cast and confetti has fallen now. president obama is back at the white house and he is already staring at a full plate of issues, including syria and libya. we look at the chance ahead. >> after returning to the white house last night, president obama today took a stream of celebratory phone calls from world leaders like the u.k.'s david cameron and

israel's benjamin netanyahu. the euphoria of re-election is quickly giving way to hard reality of governing with the foreign policy crisis bubbling from iran to syria. plus, lingering questions about the terror attack in benghazi, which will result in those three different house and senate committees, grilling administration officials next thursday. >> hopefully now that we're past the election the administration will do the right thing. coming up to the election they did notch they claim to be the most pope and transparent administration ever but they are not going the basics in sharing with congress this basic information. >> one of the three panels the house foreign affairs committee invited secretary of state hillary clinton to testify about the terror attack for the first time. >> we are very committed to working with the congress throughout the process. >> on the domestic front second term issues are as thorny, with the president pushing for bipartisan deal on immigration reform and that eluded several predecessors. his campaign manager conducted the time conference call of the election season today and

did a victory lap declaring that republicans are on defense with the latino voters now. >> standard bearer of their party talks about them as illegals, and would veto piece of legislation like to dream act, 90% of the latino voters support that, it makes it hard to get votes. >> white house aides believe their boss now has the upper naned negotiations over the fiscal cliff, especially with the republican speaker john boehner signaling he may be ready for a deal. so conservatives are warning while the president does not have to face the voters again, congressional democrats will in two years. tax hikes could come back to haunt them. >> i think he is going to require increase in tax rate on wealthy. that is his downfall. that is just makes no sense whatsoever. the wealthy are the people who hire everyone else. you can't love jobs and hate job creators. >> white house officials note the president campaigned on raising taxes and he won so he

thinks he can sell it to the congressional democrats. meanwhile, the white house officials tonight say he will make the first post-election statement at the white house. tomorrow afternoon, talk about the economy, fiscal cliff. it doesn't look like he will take questions, not a full scale. post election news conference, though. it may be coming soon. >> bret: we'll cover it live on fox. thanks. what is the most pressing issue right now for president? let me know on twitter. follow me. @bretbaier. we kept you well fed with steady diet of polls in the campaign. which ones were right? this which ones were complete junk food? answer is later in the grapevine. up next, trying to wean the economy off massive debt and deficits. [ male announcer ] what are happy kids made of?

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>> bret: one of the most pressing issue for president obama and the lame duck congress is the crushing debt and deficit. there already is one plan out there to deal with them. tonight, chief national

correspondent jim angle reports the proposal is getting a fresh look. >> simpson-bowles commission ended the work almost two years ago but is now the center of attention again, even running a new ad. part of a campaign funded by $36 million in corporate contributions. >> private sector recognizes that we can't continue to live beyond our means. we're borrowing about a third of everything we spend at the federal level. >> private sector is petrified that inaction on the debt could lead to a catastrophe in the economy. >> at some point, the financial markets could react. debt could be downgraded by the rating agencies. interest rates could spike. the stock market could tumble. >> we have had no real reform on the tax code. we have the fiscal cliff bearing down on us. so, why not look at simpson-bowles, although it's over two years later. >> its recommendations take on added weight as the congressional budget office released a report saying if

the fiscal cliff happens, the economy will shrink half a percent. >> very, very unusual for cbo to come out and predict a recession if the fiscal cliff is not resolved. >> the simpson bowles commission had several recommendations but at the broadest form it was a little of everything. >> simpson-bowles basically included a ratio of about $2.50 in spending cuts for every dollar of revenue increases. >> mostly by eliminating tax deductions. it proposed a reform of entitlement, such as social security and medicare which many democrats are resisting. >> the good news is thank god people are living a heck of a lot longer. that is great news. it isn't good news for the treasury. >> one principle in entitlement reform is mean test benefit meaning the wealthier recipients get less. >> it has to be a means test. if you want something, you shouldn't get it. if you need something, you should get it. >> now some analysts think

lawmakers can do better than bowles-simpson because they argue it raises taxes by $8,000 a household. so that isn't necessarily the roadmap. but it is an example of how lawmakers could avoid a cliff. with as little time as they have to craft the bipartisan agreement, they may need all the help they can get. >> bret: speaker boehner yesterday said in the lame duck congress they are just not going to be able to the big issue and he reiterated that today. it seems the democrats kind of want that deadline and want that pressure, as opposed to what the speaker said. >> yeah, exactly. the speaker is saying look, we can make a down payment. we can do something, we can't solve this during the lame duck in his view. we can make a down payment and have major solution in 2013. the democrats don't want to give up the leverage they have by willing an impending fiscal crisis -- by having an impending fiscal crisis. they want the dagger over everyone's head to force through tax increases president has been campaigning

on for some time. >> bret: we'll follow it. thanks. wall street followed up the worst day of the year with a less terrible day today. the dow still lost 121. the s&p 500 dropped 17. the nasdaq fell 42. but the two-day loss on the dow of more than 400 points is the largest two-day loss since no. 9 of last year. the she cannot in the mail for greece's next bail-out payment. the money managers are not ready to release the installment. a general strike today following a night of violent protests. senior foreign affairs correspondent amy kellogg is watching it play out from london. >> resistance to the budget cut in greece. the government voted in the wee hours of the morning to slash pension fan and cut salaries of french the police officers to judges. >> difficult vote.

painful vote. we fully understand the situation of the people. >> the latest unemployment figures came out today. 25.4% overall. staggering 58% for the young. greece will go bankrupt if it doesn't get the next tranche of european bail-out money this month and it needed to make cuts to get cash. some experts say greece's problems alone don't have a direct impact on the united states economy. but the whole of the euro zone in crisis does. as america struggles to boost growth. >> there are issues with confidence. worsening of the euro zone would have global impact. that is something that the u.s. consumer cannot ignore. >> greece's prime minister tried to put a positive spin on the situation. >> after monday, my personal goal give greece people right for growth and bring back smiles. it cannot happen only with

work and organized action. >> monday is the day the european finance ministers meet to discuss greece with the $40 billion it needs. germany's finance minister says there are still some questions that need to be answered. and e.u. countrys need to vote before greece gets cash in hand. bret? >> bret: amy kellogg in london. thank you. still ahead -- a preview of the second obama administration. first, the second big storm to hit the northeast in two weeks. from local communities to local businesses.

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>> bret: high drama today in arizona courtroom. former congresswoman gabrielle giffords among survivors of last year's tucson massacre. who attended the sentencing hearing for the man who shot them. 24-year-old jared loughner will serve life in prison for

killing six people and wounding 13 others. giffords's husband spoke for her. telling loughner her life, family and career have been immeasurably altered. new jersey governor chris christie says he is waiting for locusts and pestilence next. the people of his state and neighboring new york are dealing with the second major weather event in two weeks. rick leventhal has an update from staten island. >> sanitation trucks use claws to clear huge piles of debris from staten island. this neighborhood swamped by 12 feet of water, full mile from the ocean. residents still without power. gutting their homes to try to save them. >> three days now, pumped out all water. we have resill wall water downstairs. take out wall, kitchen and look around. >> across the region, hundreds of thousands are still freezing in the dark. my daughter is three. i bundled her up in blankets

and put her in middle between my husband and myself to get body heat and warm. >> some got power back after sandy's devastation then lost it again from the nor'easter who dumped a foot of snow in some part of engler. >> we have not seen the same damage with hurricane sandy an we're confident we can move forward in recovery efforts. >> some residents in the hardest hit areas are fed up and say they don't know how they'll go on. >> i haven't figured that out yet. i really haven't. >> this is awful. this is just beyond terrible. it's awful. i'm done. >> many homeowners say even with insurance they are on the hook for personal expenses. >> we have all these years been paying for living expense insurance, pay up to 12 months additional living expenses when the house is uninhabitable. our house is uninhabitable by

fema and the insurance company is refusing to pay a penny for that because it's a flood and flood is not coverable insurance. >> reporter: residents had another reason to complain when the temporary fema offices shut down ahead of the storm. the one on staten island reopened this afternoon. and now new york city and long island following new jersey's lead going to an odd-even gas management plan, people with odd number license plates can only fill up on odd numbered days and people with even plates on even days to shorten gas lines. anyone without heat and power is in for another cold night with the temperatures dipping near freezing. bret? >> bret: rick leventhal live in staten island. thanks. state official says new york governor andrew cuomo fired his emergency management director for diverting a work crew to remove a tree from his driveway after superstorm sandy hit. stephen kerr was pulling down $153,000 a year. no comment from him or the governor's office.

learning the hard way every vote does count. who got it right and who got it wrong in the polls? the survey says next in the grapevine. ♪

♪ ♪ hi dad. many years from now, when the subaru is theirs... hey. you missed a spot. ...i'll look back on this day and laugh. love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. [ female announcer ] some people like to pretend a flood could never happen to them. and that their homeowners insurance protects them. [ thunder crashes ] it doesn't. stop pretending. only flood insurance covers floods.

♪ visit floodsmart.gov/pretend to learn your risk. if we want to improve our schools... ... what should we invest in? maybe new buildings? what about updated equipment? they can help, but recent research shows... ... nothing transforms schools like investing in advanced teacher education. let's build a strong foundation. let's invest in our teachers so they can inspire our students. let's solve this. >> bret: now some fresh picking from the political grapevine. after every election there are number of winners and losers of course. tonight, list of winners and losers of the people who predict winners and losers. the pollsters. fortham university study

credits the democratic leaning public policy polling, p.p.p., as the most accurate of the survey companies this year. the poll it does in partnership with the daily coast and the services employee international union seiu was second. ugov was third. ipsos/reuters and purple strategies round out the top five. bottom of the list includes famous ones. rasmussen, gallup, npr, national journal. last place, "associated press" poll conducted by g.f.k. larry sabato tell us what happened. some pollsters thought turn huff out in election would look more like 2004 when bush won than 2008 when obama won. this caused them to overestimate romney's likely vote in the swing states. they were wrong. those who rejected electorate in 2008 were right. lesson learned all around. poll aggregator real clear politics was not part of the study.

but it correctly predicted every state with florida still undecided. the biggest money loser in the general election campaign was casino mogul sheldon addleson who spent $53 million on the romney effort as well as funding senate and house races off. of his candidates lost except one. nevada senator-elect dean heller defeated addleson foe shelly berkeley, a democrat. forbes put it in perspective. $53 million may sound like a chuck of change, it's not much for a guy worth $20.5 billion. imagine an average person with $100,000 net worth, buying a pair of shoes for $250. you'd care if you lost them, but you wouldn't be ruined. finally one kentucky candidate learned the hard way that every vote counts. robert mcdonald finished in a dead heat with to livia bilou for time seat on the

walton city council. one vote that was not cast would have put him over the top. only one vote would have done it. cincinnati inquirer reports that mcdonald's wife who works nights at hospital and finishing nursing training did not make it to the polls. so now his election will hinge on a coin flip. president obama didn't have to rely, of course, on con flip to get his second term but now he has some decisions to make. about who is going to be working with him over the next four years. correspondent shannon bream on the possibilities. >> that is something i'm in the process now of trying to determine. >> as attorney general eric holder waits to determine whether he will serve in the second term obama administration it's clear the channels he faces include being held in contempt of congress by g.o.p. controlled house are likely factoring in to the decision. >> do i have less, you know, gas left in the tank? it's been an interesting and tough four years. so i really don't know. >> other key members of the president's cabinet have

already signaled they won't be around for a full eight years, including secretary of state hillary clinton. she publicly indicated she does not intend to stay, sparking speculation about who her successor may be. early chatter centered on the u.n. ambassador susan rice. but her public role in controversial statements in the wake of the failed benghazi attack that left four americans dead could make potential confirmation process through the senate a rocky one. it's no secret senator john kerry, head of the senate foreign relations committee would be interested in the job, though his open senate seat would trigger another special election in massachusetts. with democrats holding a solid majority in the senate, it could be something the white house would be open to explore. >> maybe the president is willing to enter the possibility of losing a senate seat if he wants john kerry badly enough. >> treasury secretary tim geithner has also expressed his desire to return to private life. but with key tax cuts set to expire and sequestration looming his departure is

likely to be delayed. >> people like secretary geithner have put a lot of energy in to the issues, related to the fiscal cliff. they are going to want to see it through. >> the same is likely through of defense secretary leon panetta who pleaded with congress to find solution to automatic cuts that could be "de stating" to the pentagon. today, a pentagon spokesman shot down talk of his departure. >> secretary panetta is focused squarely on his job today. focused on the mission of department of defense and not focused on his personal futur future. >> steven hess who served in numerous white house administrations said after four years most cabinet members would like to go to their kid's soccer games and return to private sector where lucrative offers are usually waiting. >> bret: more on this with the panel. thanks. former democratic party chairman says he is preparing another run at the governor's office in virginia.

he is formalizing plans for his second gubernatorial bid. he lost in the primary in 2009. fireworks in the sky over persian gulf. iran takes a shot at a u.s. drone. what does it mean? what is next with iran? the fox all-stars discuss when we return. victor! victor! i got your campbell's chunky soup. mom? who's mom? i'm the giants mascot. the giants don't have a mascot! ohhh! eat up! new jammin jerk chicken soup has tasty pieces of chicken with rice and beans. hmmm. for giant hunger! thanks mom! see ya! whoaa...oops! mom? i'm ok. grandma? hi sweetie! she operates the head. [ male announcer ] campbell's chunky soup. it fills you up right. one is for a clean, she wedomestic energy future that puts us in control. our abundant natural gas is already saving us money, producing cleaner electricity, putting us to work here in america

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i can confirm that on november 1, approximately 4:50 a.m. eastern time, military aircraft conducting routine surveillance over the iarabian gulf was intercepted by the iranian s-u 25 aircraft and fired upon with guns. the incident occurred over international waters. president 16 nautical -- approximately 1 nautical miles off the coastline. it was not hit and returned to its base safely. >> bret: okay. we're just finding out about

that today. iranian jets firing on a u.s. predator drone on november 1. six days before the u.s. election. what about this? what does it tell us about iran? actually, five days before the election. six days before now. seven days before now. let's bring in the panel. steve hayes for the "weekly standard." kirsten powers for the daily and charledale --daily beast. and syndicated columnist charles krauthammer. >> start with the chiding republicans for politicizing foreign affairs over benghazi. here we have an incident that occurs november 1, an election five days later. we hear nothing about it until two days after the election. so either our intelligence agencies on which we spend $60 billion a year take a week to ascertain that one of our drones has been shot at or this is an obvious attempt to manipulate information and hide it until after the

election. second, there is the response. this is the shooting of american aircraft over international waters. that is an act of war. it doesn't mean we have to go war over it but a serious act of war. we're the protectors and defenders in the shipping in the strait of hormuz. what is our response? protest and the statement we heard that we will continue to this, george little. we have let the iranians know we are going to continue to, continue our flights. how about saying something like you shouldn't be doing this? this is intolerable. we don't have to fire at them or take out an aircraft or a ship or anything, but perhaps reposition our ships as a way to say, you know, don't do this again. the iranians will understand they can take shot at our drones. today unmanned, tomorrow they could hit a plane with a pilot in it and there would be no price. what is happening behind the

scenes we have secret prenegotiations happening to date with iran. it's an open secret in the gulf. obama wants desperately a one-on-one negotiation with iran over the nukes. he wants at all cost to avoid the conflict. the iranians were saying we could poke you in eye , provoke you and continue to harass you and show you and the world that you want the negotiations much more than we do. >> bret: our producer at the pentagon asked that very question. is this an act of war? take a listen. >> is it an act of war? >> i'm not going to get in to legal labels. the reality is that we have a wide range of options as i said before to protect the asset and forces in the region. we'll do so when necessary. we have communicated to the iranians, that we will continue to conduct surveillance flights over international waters. over the iarabian gulf, consistent with the long standing practice. >> bret: okay.

kirsten? >> obviously, they should haven't sat on the information, the information should have come out sooner but would have had zero impact on the election. >> bret: i don't think anyone is saying that. but still. >> yeah. i just think this is a provocation, act of war. it doesn't make iranians look menacing that they are unable to shoot down a drone. so, you know, it was unmanned. nobody was killed. i think it's pretty clear we have a bad relationship with iran, that iran is unhappy with us, that we have imposed sanctions on them, that are crippling their economy. you know, beyond that, i don't know what more the president is supposed to do about this. >> respond in some fashion would be nice beyond saying we'll continue to fly our planes. this best understood not as a single isolated event as another in a long series of provocations, i would say acts of war we have seen in the past decade that are unresponded to by both administrations, first the bush administration. since by the obama

administration. but they include, of course, arm, equipping, financing and training terrorists who are killing our soldiers in iraq and afghanistan. that has been going on forever. it's gotten virtually no response. the obama administration designated the senior iranian officials for what they call the core pipeline, supplying al-qaeda, operatives and money that goes through iran in to pakistan. that is a big deal. that is our threat. that is our enemy in this war on terror that we continue to fight even though the president doesn't call it that. so this is, in the big scheme of things, this is yet another example of why the regime in iran is the problem. you can have negotiations about iran's nuclear program. but the regime is the core problem. >> bret: i guess is this a sign that iran is getting more bold? >> it's a sign, they are telegraphing to us. to the hardliners and softliners. and their government as well,

they are not afraid in the united states, they know that they have the upper hand in these negotiations. united states is abandoning the p-plus-five. p-plus-one, which is the group negotiating with iran. supposedly liberals for multilateralism. here they are going for unilateralism. they want one-on-one negotiations. iranians are saying the americans are desperate for solution, because they want anything that will avert a regional war. so they have this upper hand in negotiations. they are showing everybody in the region they are not afraid of provoking the united states over the single most important role it has. which is keeping open the strait of hormuz. which is the world's choke point for the export of oil. >> same time, we are getting ready next week for hearings up on capitol hill on the attack on the u.s. mission in libya, in benghazi. talking about that, lawmakers

are talking about access to material. state department was going to let senators look at classified cables and e-mails and e-mail traffic. today, and tomorrow only. if they came in town the look at them. then there was letter exchange and now apparently staff can look at them. today and tomorrow. take a listen to this. >> they claim to be the most open and transparent administration ever. but they are not doing the basics in sharing with congress this basic information. >> the administration thinks that because the, you know, they won an election this is going away. absolutely not. we're going to continue to press on in this. >> okay, kirsten, preview of the hearing next week? >> well, yes, they need to share as much information as possible. i think that hopefully we'll finally get answers to some questions. we can go back all the way to the beginning and find out where do the initial stories come from.

they were stories, not facts. to have somebody be able to actually pore over this information and ask questions will be refreshing. >> bret: steve? >> long overdue. i think, i hope they include all of the e-mail traffic, including the e-mail traffic communication traffic between individuals on the ground, in benghazi, as the attack was happening. in the hours preceding the attack and hours peedly after the attack. those are the kind of important documents that typically are not shared. that would be considered raw intelligence, raw information. they usually just share finished products. republicans are going to push for the inclusion of the raw intelligence in the documents they get to see. it will be important. >> there are so many scandals here. the republicans ought to focus on one. not what happened before the lack of protection and not the lies and the stories of the fables told after. i think what we want to know is what happened in the nine hours. whether the state department knows, what did it communicate, what did the people who are watching all of

this unfold say and to whom? did the white house know about it? where was the president. what decisions did he make? where was the c.i.a.? were people told to stand down? the nine hours is the scandal. people died in that. and there has been no explanation of who ordered what and what was the role of the president. >> you do have to look at the story that were told afterwards again and degeneres. >> my problem is -- >> wrong, misleading and deliberately false. >> i agree. three scandals here. if you look at all of them, the story gets so wide and broad that i think the public will get lost. stay on one issue that everybody wantbes to know. where was the president and defense department and c.i.a. when your guys were dying. >> bret: the first hearings are closed. we won't see it. but up next, the second obama administration. what will it look like and what will it face? where others fail, droid powers through.

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i don't think the secretary's plans have changed. you heard her say many times that she intends to seek through transition of a successor and then she will go back to private life. >> it has been an interesting and tough four years. i really don't know at this point. >> bret: the attorney general, talking about his plans. he doesn't know. although, what he said today, it sounded like his plans may be to leigh the administration. and secretary clinton said he is has plans to leave. others as well, secretary geithner, treasury. secretary panetta. so what will the second term look like in the cabinet? back with the panel.

kirsten? what do you think? >> well, i think that it's not much of a secret that john kerry wants hillary clinton's job, and he seems to be really the only one in the running. before susan rice was talked about, but she probably didn't have enough stature anyway, but after the benghazi stuff, it sounds like she is totally -- >> bret: i saw bloomberg story today that she was in the, still in the running and one of the top choices. >> that's not what i heard. i heard it's pretty much down to john kerry. and that in terms of other big changes, i heard different things about holder but i did hear that janet napolitano is very interested in taking that job if he left. probably the white house chief of staff is leaving. perhaps he would end up at treasury. >> bret: jack lew. >> john knives a former boss of mine is talked about as a chief of staff. excellent choice. those are probably the big changes.

>> bret: what about defense? steve? if panetta leaves. >> yeah, i don't know. there are a lot of people who would be up for consideration for secretary of defense. i don't think if you look at the world the way i do, leon panetta is probably a good person to have at defense. hillary clinton leaving the obama administration to extent that the cabinet secretaries really affect the way, the direction, the strategic direction of the obama administration, she is a good person to have at the state department. you are likely given the way that the president has governed, given his world view and on foreign policy, he embraced, remember joe biden cited leading from behind and useds it in the campaign, talked about it. you going to lose two people who have been potentially the best friends of what i would consider to be a sane, reasonably sane foreign policy. >> bret: at treasury, geithner leighs, as expect -- leaves as expected. kirsten mentioned jack lew moving over from the white house. also tossed around a name out

there, erskine bowles. one of the two bowles-simpson. and if the president was to embrace bowles-simpson and put erskine bowles at treasury, would that be a signal that he is in it for the long haul on bowles-simpson in the broad term? >> i think it would be. it would be a brilliant idea. if he can get some kind of agreement on the lines of their recommendations, that will be a triumph. politically for him. and i think also, the country will benefit. i think one thing he might do if it's not bowles would be to offer the treasury to romney. i'm sure he would probably turn it down but it would be the ultimate gesture. i don't think it will happen. i agree john kerry will probably end up at secretary of state. i must say that my sources in the obama white house have been rather quiet since january 2009. [ laughter ] so i'm not sure i have any other inside information. i do that panetta is an interesting man, because he has said that the

sequestration, the reduction of funds of the pentagon pentagon happens it will destroy and hallow out the military and whether he -- i mean if he is deposed. and h leaves that will allow obama more leeway cutting the pentagon. otherwise panetta could resign on principle if the sequestration were to happen. that would be embarrassing. >> bret: so you think it doesn't happen? >> i think he will likely be eased out. so there will be somebody more pliable at defense. >> i think the term for is it "flexibility" in this administration, second term. >> malleable. >> the president prefers flexibility. >> he will be flexible after the election. he told his good russian friend. >> bret: this is the parlor game we play, finding out who will be in the cabinet, the second term. that is it for the panel. stay tuned for a final election message from one of the campaigns. watch this. [ whoosh! ] [ man ] whoo-hoo!

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>> bret: finally tonight, there has been a lot of talk about compromise, reaching across the aisle and the last day and a half after the election we looked for a final message from the obama campaign on the internet, something, wraps, profound about the campaign, about the country, something uniting. and, well, this is what we found. ♪ can't touch this ♪ can't touch this ♪ my, my ♪ hit me so hard ♪ may me say oh my lord ♪ thank you for blessing me. [feels good ♪ when you know home boy ♪ and i'm known as such ♪ and this is a debunk ♪ can't touch this ♪ i told you ♪ home boy ♪ can't touch this. >> bret: that was no from the campaign just in case you didn't know. and in cas